27. God the Creator
4. God is the Creator of All Things
God is the Creator of all things. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that faith confirms this natural truth of creation.1 To give knowledge beyond the natural knowledge that humanity can have about the Creator (cf. Acts 17:24–29; Rom 1:19–20), God progressively revealed the mystery of creation to Israel. He revealed himself as the one to whom all peoples of the earth belong, as he is the only God “who made heaven and earth” (Ps 115:15; 124:8; 134:3).
In Sacred Scripture, the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and accomplishment of the covenant between the One God and his people. Creation is revealed as the first step toward this covenant; it is the first and universal testimony of God’s almighty love (cf. Gn 15:5; Jer 33:19–26). The truth about creation becomes clear in the message of the prophets (cf. Is 44:24), in the Psalms (cf. Ps 104), and in the Proverbs (cf. Prv 8:22–31).
Among these texts, the first three chapters of Genesis are the most explicit in expressing the truths about creation: its origin, its end in God, its order and goodness, man’s vocation, the drama of sin, and the hope of salvation.
If a person, upon entering a certain house, felt a warmth at the door of the house, and going within felt a greater warmth, and so on the more he went into its interior, he would believe that something within was afire, even if he did not see the fire itself. So also is it when we consider the things of this world. For one finds all things, arranged in different degrees of beauty and worth, and the closer things approach to God, the more beautiful and better they are found to be.… Therefore, it must be seen that all these things proceed from one God who gives his being and beauty to each and everything.2
4a) Creation out of Nothing
God created the world and everything in it, both the spiritual and material creatures, out of nothing (de fide).
The Magisterium of the Church has always taught the above doctrine. It is found in the earliest Symbols of the Faith: “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”3
Later, in the year 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council defined the following: “There is only one true God.… Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who, by his almighty power, from the very beginning of time has created both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing, the spiritual or angelic world and the corporeal or the visible universe. And afterwards he formed the creature man, who in a way or another belongs to both orders as he is composed of spirit and body.”4
In the nineteenth century, the First Vatican Council, in the dogmatic constitution De Fide Catholica, again defined the dogma of creation, closely following the declaration of the Fourth Lateran Council. Further, it added canons condemning those who deny it: “If anyone does not admit that the world and everything in it, both spiritual and material, have been produced in their entire substance by God out of nothing, let him be anathema.”5
Sacred Scripture contains the truth of creation in many passages. Genesis 1:1 is perhaps the fundamental text: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In the Bible, the expression “heaven and earth” is equivalent to the totality of the universe.
God’s act of creation without any previous matter is expressly mentioned in the Maccabean mother’s exhortation to her youngest son, encouraging him to face martyrdom with fortitude: “I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being” (2 Mc 7:28, author’s emphasis).
The Fathers of the Church included this belief of creation in the fundamental truths of Christian doctrine. A second century author wrote, “In the first place, believe that there is one God, who created and perfected everything, and made everything out of nothing, so that it may exist.”6
While St. Basil compared the divine creative act to that of an artisan, he clearly points out the differences:
In our case, any craft is in need of some matter. The blacksmith, for example, needs iron. The carpenter needs wood. In crafted products, we can distinguish the matter, the form, and that which is formed. The matter is taken from outside, craft introduces the form to the matter, and the resulting product is a composite of matter and form.... On the other hand, when God decided to introduce that which did not exist into existence he created the form and the corresponding matter simultaneously, while thinking at the same time of the shape of the world.7
4b) God Creates Directly
God created all things in an immediate way, without use of any instrument (de fide).
Was it possible that God made use of some created instrument in the work of creation? Did he make use of a creature that, by an assignment from God, took care of creating certain things, thus helping God in his work? We will see that this is not possible.
The Magisterium of the Church, in the aforementioned text of the Fourth Lateran Council, teaches as a truth of faith that only God created: “There is only one true God … the one and only principle of all things—Creator of all things.”8
Many passages of Sacred Scripture teach this truth (cf. Sir 1:8; Rom 11:36; Heb 3:4). Isaiah is particularly clear: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the earth” (Is 44:24).
The Fathers of the Church had to defend this truth against heretics who attributed the creation of the world to some kind of intermediate creature between God and man. St. Augustine says, “It is not licit to believe or to say that someone other than God has created any inferior or mortal natures.”9
4c) Only God Can Create
Only God can create, since to create something out of nothing requires an infinite power, which only God has (sent. comm.).
We have seen, based on revelation (Sacred Scripture and Tradition) authentically interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church, that God created everything out of nothing and that he did not make use of any instrument in his work of creation. However, could not creation have taken place in another way?
Natural reason itself, based on our knowledge of physical realities, shows us that such realities could not have been the result of mere chance by which, one day, a supposedly pre-existing matter would have become perfectly organized.
What can we say about the life pulsating marvelously in those minute organisms, in each bacterium, in each cell—extremely complex and perfectly coordinated structures containing a sort of miniature universe unto themselves? Has all this arisen out of mere chance, or does it proceed from a Creator?
What is the probability that if one tossed the loose types into a printing press, they would fall in such an order as to form a great novel? There is no need to try it out, either once or a thousand times. The answer is clear; there is practically no possibility that such a thing would occur. It is even more improbable that the order of the universe could have arisen either by chance or by itself. If it is impossible that the universe should order itself, it is still less likely that it would begin to exist all by itself. Therefore, it is impossible that there should be an uncreated universe. Our intelligence tells us that the whole universe has been created by God.10
We still have many other powerful arguments, based on the metaphysical structure of beings. In all creatures, a distinction can be made between its essence and its act of being. A bird and a man have something in common: They both have an act of being. Nevertheless, they are different because they have different essences: the bird’s essence and man’s. The act of being of each one of them is limited by its particular essence. Their participation in the perfection of being is limited by the bounds of their respective natures.
God’s case is different. His essence consists in having the maximum perfection, or what is tantamount, having the fullness of being. His act of being is infinite, because the divine essence does not impose any limitation to being. God is Being, the ipsum esse subsistens.
Moreover, whatever is in a thing by participation must necessarily be caused by that which has it essentially (or by essence). For example, hot soup or coffee participate in heat. Yet, obviously, they are not heated by themselves. Their heat must be received from that which is hot by essence, that is to say, from fire or an incandescent substance.
Let us apply this truth to the order of being. All creatures have being, but only by participation. Therefore, it is necessary for them to have received being from that which is being by essence, from God.11 Therefore, all things have been created by God.
Creation is a production of something from nothing, that is to say, out of non-being. Passing from nothing to being requires infinite power, which can be possessed only by someone that has being by essence. Thus, only God can create.12 It is impossible that there could be some creature that can create, which God used as an instrument of creation. God creates all things in an immediate manner. This does not exclude an ulterior evolution of the material world, guided by God’s Intelligence.
4d) Creation is a Trinitarian Action
The whole Trinity is the sole principle of the creative action (de fide). It is attributed to the Father by appropriation.
“In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.… all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (Jn 1:1, 3). The New Testament reveals that God created everything through the incarnate Word, his Son. “For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:16–17). The faith of the Church affirms also the creative action of the Holy Spirit; he is “the Giver of Life” (Vivificans), “the Creative Spirit” (Creator Spiritus), and the “source of all good.”13
In the Council of Trent, the Magisterium of the Church defined it thus: “The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of creation.”14 The Fourth Lateran Council also spoke in this regard: “The Father is the progenitor, the Son is being born, and the Holy Spirit is proceeding … they are the one and only principle of all things—Creator of all things.”15
The Fathers of the Church—mainly in the confrontations with Gnostics and Arians—frequently expressed the idea that the world was created by the Triune God. For example, St. Basil wrote: “As regards the creation of these [the angels], think about a primordial cause of what has been made, which is the Father; think about a producing cause, which is the Son; think about a cause that communicates the perfection, which is the Spirit. But no one should think that I am affirming the existence of three creating beings. There is only one principle.”16
In the Most Blessed Trinity, there are three Persons, but there is only one God, one sole divine nature. Therefore, there is only one principle of operations. All the operations ad extra of God—the operations whose object is outside of him (not the relations between the Persons)—proceed from this one nature and are common to the three divine Persons. Creation is one of these ad extra operations and is, therefore, common to the whole Trinity.17
Nevertheless, by appropriation, creation is attributed to the Father. Since the Father is the principle that begets the Son and from which the Holy Spirit proceeds, he is said to be the principle of all things.
5. Motive and Purpose of Creation
5a) Creation is Free
God created the world by a decision of his will, free from any necessity (de fide).
The Magisterium of the Church teaches that God created the world freely, without having been forced to do so by any kind of internal or external necessity. The First Vatican Council stated, “In order to manifest his perfection through the benefits that he bestows on creatures—not to intensify his happiness or to acquire it—this one and only true God, by his goodness and almighty power and by a completely free decision, from the very beginning of time has created both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing.”18
Sacred Scripture shows that God’s desire for something to exist is enough for that thing to receive its being: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.… ‘Let there be a firmament …’ And it was so” (Gen 1:3, 4–7). In the Book of Psalms, the complete freedom of God in creation is clearly mentioned: “Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth” (Ps 135:6).
Among the Fathers of the Church, St. Irenaeus stated, “He made everything freely, and in the manner that he wanted.”19 St. Augustine insisted that God did not need to create in order to have greater happiness: “What would have been lacking in Your happiness, which is Yourself for Yourself, if the creatures had not been made or if they had remained in a state that was not yet formed? You have not created them because you had any need of them, but you have made them and given them form because of the superabundant fullness of your graces.”20
God, moved exclusively by his love, wanted to create all things in order to manifest his glory and make his creatures share in his happiness. He is all-perfect and he is in need of nothing. He did not have to create in order to obtain some perfection he did not yet possess. That is why he created with complete freedom. He would not have been less God, nor less perfect, nor less good, if he had not carried out the work of creation. God’s freedom of creating or not is called freedom of contradiction.
Additionally, God has the freedom of specification. This means that, even after deciding to create, he was not obliged to create this particular world. He could have made a completely different one. This world is just one of those possible for the divine omnipotence. Although this world is very good, God could have created other much better worlds. Aside from his infinite power, God’s freedom of specification arises from the fact that no creature is necessary in itself. It can exist or not exist. Therefore, God could have made or not made each of the possible creatures at his own discretion.
5b) The Purpose of Creation
God created the world for his own glory, that is, in order to manifest his perfection through the good things that he communicates to creatures (de fide).
This truth of faith has been defined by the Magisterium of the Church in the First Vatican Council: “If anyone … denies that the world was made for the glory of God: let him be anathema.”21 The same council affirms that God created “in order to manifest his perfection through the benefits that he bestows on creatures.”22
Sacred Scripture also clearly contains the idea that the whole of creation is ordained to the glory of God: “The Lord has made everything for his own glory” (Prv 16:4). The “Song of the Three Young Men” in the Book of Daniel is quite impressive in this regard; it exhorts all creatures (mountains and rivers, heat and cold, birds and fish, angels and sons of men) to praise God (cf. Dn 3ff).
The same truth is taught in many texts of the Fathers of the Church. St. Ephrem asserted, “God has shown his power as creator by creating everything out of nothing. He has shown the richness of his wisdom by adorning, ordering, beautifying, and crowning all things. He has shown his goodness by gratuitously forming all the beautiful creatures.”23 Commenting on a text from the Book of Wisdom, St. Cyril of Jerusalem maintained that “the more we know the creatures, the more clearly the greatness of God shines forth.”24
The following arguments can shed some light on the freedom of God in creating and ordaining all creatures to the glory of God.
First, we must consider our natural experience regarding the way creatures act. It is proper of a created being to receive some effect from the actions it performs. After walking home from the office, a person receives the effect of his action: He finds himself at the doorstep of his house. A car mechanic receives the payment for his or her repairs and, at the same time, acquires more skill and experience in his job. These effects are the ends sought through the action.
However, God is not trying to acquire anything when he acts, because he cannot acquire anything that he does not already have. Therefore, the end of creation can be nothing but God himself. The only possible purpose of God’s ad extra operations are to manifest his perfection—his own goodness—as he communicates it. He is the fullness of Being, and he wants the creatures to have a participated being. This perfection of being in which we find creatures participating manifests the fullness of Being from which it originates. In the same way, the splendor of dawn manifests the nearness of the sun and, generally speaking, every effect manifests or reflects its cause. Thus, it is proper of creatures to manifest, through the goods they have received from their Creator, the perfection of the one who gave them those goods. In other words, it is proper of creatures to give glory to God.
5c) The World is Good
The world is good in itself (de fide).
Since the earliest times, the Magisterium of the Church has repeatedly affirmed that all creatures are intrinsically good. The Council of Florence declared, “When God willed, in his goodness he created all creatures both spiritual and corporeal. These creatures are good because they were made by the Supreme Good, but they are changeable because they were made out of nothing.… there is no such thing as a nature of evil, because every nature insofar as it is a nature is good.”25
Sacred Scripture explicitly mentions the goodness of created things. After the narrative of the six days of creation, the Book of Genesis adds, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gn 1:31). St. Paul also clearly remarked that “everything created by God is good” (1 Tm 4:4).
The writings of the Fathers of the Church show an ancient struggle against heretics who posited the existence of naturally evil substances. All the Fathers agreed in defining evil as the lack of a good due in a certain nature. Evil resides in a subject that, in itself, is good. Still, evil is not a substance: It is always an accidental privation.26
The good is the being insofar as it is desirable for the will. All creatures—from a grain of sand to the most perfect beings (the angels)—have received their being from God. That is why they are good and manifest the goodness and omnipotence of God.
On the contrary, evil is a privation of something that is due a being. Blindness, for example, is an evil because it is the absence of something due to man: the sense of sight. Nevertheless, a subject that is good will suffer evil, simply because evil exists. In the final analysis, the only real evil is sin—the act of a will that refuses to love what God wills. Still, sin is always committed while seeking an aspect of the good to which sin is united, such as the satisfaction of an impulse of pride or sensuality, the possession of some object, or comfort. Evil—sickness, moral suffering, or sin—is the undue privation of a particular good.
Since all things created by God are naturally good, we ought to love the world in which God has placed us, and work so that the earthly realities may once again clearly manifest the goodness of God. “We must love the world and work and all human things. For the world is good. Adam’s sin destroyed the divine balance of creation; but God the Father sent his only Son to re-establish peace, so that we, his children by adoption, might free creation from disorder and reconcile all things to God.”27
Footnotes:
1. Cf. CCC, 286–289.
2. The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 10.
3. DS 6.
4. DS 800.
5. DS 3025; cf. CCC, 296–298.
6. Hermas, The Shepherd, Comm. 1.1.
7. St. Basil, In Hexaem., hom. 2.2.
8. DS 800.
9. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 12, 24.
10. J. Ortiz López, Palabras de Vida Eterna: Charlas Sobre el Credo (Madrid: Magisterio Español), pp. 83–84.
11. Cf. ST, I, q. 44, a. 1.
12. Cf. Ibid., q. 45, a. 5.
13. Cf. CCC, 290–292.
14. DS 1331.
15 DS 800.
16. St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 16. 38.
17. Cf. ST, I, q. 45, a. 6.
18. DS 3002. Author’s emphasis; cf. CCC, 295.
19. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 3.8.3.
20. St. Augustine, Confessions, 13.4.
21. DS 3025.
22 DS 3002, cf. CCC, 293–294.
23. St. Ephrem, Hymn Adv. Haer.
24. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 9.2.
25. DS 1333; cf. CCC, 299.
26. Cf. St. Augustine, C. Julian., 1.6.17.
27. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, 112.
God is the Creator of all things. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that faith confirms this natural truth of creation.1 To give knowledge beyond the natural knowledge that humanity can have about the Creator (cf. Acts 17:24–29; Rom 1:19–20), God progressively revealed the mystery of creation to Israel. He revealed himself as the one to whom all peoples of the earth belong, as he is the only God “who made heaven and earth” (Ps 115:15; 124:8; 134:3).
In Sacred Scripture, the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and accomplishment of the covenant between the One God and his people. Creation is revealed as the first step toward this covenant; it is the first and universal testimony of God’s almighty love (cf. Gn 15:5; Jer 33:19–26). The truth about creation becomes clear in the message of the prophets (cf. Is 44:24), in the Psalms (cf. Ps 104), and in the Proverbs (cf. Prv 8:22–31).
Among these texts, the first three chapters of Genesis are the most explicit in expressing the truths about creation: its origin, its end in God, its order and goodness, man’s vocation, the drama of sin, and the hope of salvation.
If a person, upon entering a certain house, felt a warmth at the door of the house, and going within felt a greater warmth, and so on the more he went into its interior, he would believe that something within was afire, even if he did not see the fire itself. So also is it when we consider the things of this world. For one finds all things, arranged in different degrees of beauty and worth, and the closer things approach to God, the more beautiful and better they are found to be.… Therefore, it must be seen that all these things proceed from one God who gives his being and beauty to each and everything.2
4a) Creation out of Nothing
God created the world and everything in it, both the spiritual and material creatures, out of nothing (de fide).
The Magisterium of the Church has always taught the above doctrine. It is found in the earliest Symbols of the Faith: “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”3
Later, in the year 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council defined the following: “There is only one true God.… Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who, by his almighty power, from the very beginning of time has created both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing, the spiritual or angelic world and the corporeal or the visible universe. And afterwards he formed the creature man, who in a way or another belongs to both orders as he is composed of spirit and body.”4
In the nineteenth century, the First Vatican Council, in the dogmatic constitution De Fide Catholica, again defined the dogma of creation, closely following the declaration of the Fourth Lateran Council. Further, it added canons condemning those who deny it: “If anyone does not admit that the world and everything in it, both spiritual and material, have been produced in their entire substance by God out of nothing, let him be anathema.”5
Sacred Scripture contains the truth of creation in many passages. Genesis 1:1 is perhaps the fundamental text: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In the Bible, the expression “heaven and earth” is equivalent to the totality of the universe.
God’s act of creation without any previous matter is expressly mentioned in the Maccabean mother’s exhortation to her youngest son, encouraging him to face martyrdom with fortitude: “I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being” (2 Mc 7:28, author’s emphasis).
The Fathers of the Church included this belief of creation in the fundamental truths of Christian doctrine. A second century author wrote, “In the first place, believe that there is one God, who created and perfected everything, and made everything out of nothing, so that it may exist.”6
While St. Basil compared the divine creative act to that of an artisan, he clearly points out the differences:
In our case, any craft is in need of some matter. The blacksmith, for example, needs iron. The carpenter needs wood. In crafted products, we can distinguish the matter, the form, and that which is formed. The matter is taken from outside, craft introduces the form to the matter, and the resulting product is a composite of matter and form.... On the other hand, when God decided to introduce that which did not exist into existence he created the form and the corresponding matter simultaneously, while thinking at the same time of the shape of the world.7
4b) God Creates Directly
God created all things in an immediate way, without use of any instrument (de fide).
Was it possible that God made use of some created instrument in the work of creation? Did he make use of a creature that, by an assignment from God, took care of creating certain things, thus helping God in his work? We will see that this is not possible.
The Magisterium of the Church, in the aforementioned text of the Fourth Lateran Council, teaches as a truth of faith that only God created: “There is only one true God … the one and only principle of all things—Creator of all things.”8
Many passages of Sacred Scripture teach this truth (cf. Sir 1:8; Rom 11:36; Heb 3:4). Isaiah is particularly clear: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the earth” (Is 44:24).
The Fathers of the Church had to defend this truth against heretics who attributed the creation of the world to some kind of intermediate creature between God and man. St. Augustine says, “It is not licit to believe or to say that someone other than God has created any inferior or mortal natures.”9
4c) Only God Can Create
Only God can create, since to create something out of nothing requires an infinite power, which only God has (sent. comm.).
We have seen, based on revelation (Sacred Scripture and Tradition) authentically interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church, that God created everything out of nothing and that he did not make use of any instrument in his work of creation. However, could not creation have taken place in another way?
Natural reason itself, based on our knowledge of physical realities, shows us that such realities could not have been the result of mere chance by which, one day, a supposedly pre-existing matter would have become perfectly organized.
What can we say about the life pulsating marvelously in those minute organisms, in each bacterium, in each cell—extremely complex and perfectly coordinated structures containing a sort of miniature universe unto themselves? Has all this arisen out of mere chance, or does it proceed from a Creator?
What is the probability that if one tossed the loose types into a printing press, they would fall in such an order as to form a great novel? There is no need to try it out, either once or a thousand times. The answer is clear; there is practically no possibility that such a thing would occur. It is even more improbable that the order of the universe could have arisen either by chance or by itself. If it is impossible that the universe should order itself, it is still less likely that it would begin to exist all by itself. Therefore, it is impossible that there should be an uncreated universe. Our intelligence tells us that the whole universe has been created by God.10
We still have many other powerful arguments, based on the metaphysical structure of beings. In all creatures, a distinction can be made between its essence and its act of being. A bird and a man have something in common: They both have an act of being. Nevertheless, they are different because they have different essences: the bird’s essence and man’s. The act of being of each one of them is limited by its particular essence. Their participation in the perfection of being is limited by the bounds of their respective natures.
God’s case is different. His essence consists in having the maximum perfection, or what is tantamount, having the fullness of being. His act of being is infinite, because the divine essence does not impose any limitation to being. God is Being, the ipsum esse subsistens.
Moreover, whatever is in a thing by participation must necessarily be caused by that which has it essentially (or by essence). For example, hot soup or coffee participate in heat. Yet, obviously, they are not heated by themselves. Their heat must be received from that which is hot by essence, that is to say, from fire or an incandescent substance.
Let us apply this truth to the order of being. All creatures have being, but only by participation. Therefore, it is necessary for them to have received being from that which is being by essence, from God.11 Therefore, all things have been created by God.
Creation is a production of something from nothing, that is to say, out of non-being. Passing from nothing to being requires infinite power, which can be possessed only by someone that has being by essence. Thus, only God can create.12 It is impossible that there could be some creature that can create, which God used as an instrument of creation. God creates all things in an immediate manner. This does not exclude an ulterior evolution of the material world, guided by God’s Intelligence.
4d) Creation is a Trinitarian Action
The whole Trinity is the sole principle of the creative action (de fide). It is attributed to the Father by appropriation.
“In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.… all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (Jn 1:1, 3). The New Testament reveals that God created everything through the incarnate Word, his Son. “For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:16–17). The faith of the Church affirms also the creative action of the Holy Spirit; he is “the Giver of Life” (Vivificans), “the Creative Spirit” (Creator Spiritus), and the “source of all good.”13
In the Council of Trent, the Magisterium of the Church defined it thus: “The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of creation.”14 The Fourth Lateran Council also spoke in this regard: “The Father is the progenitor, the Son is being born, and the Holy Spirit is proceeding … they are the one and only principle of all things—Creator of all things.”15
The Fathers of the Church—mainly in the confrontations with Gnostics and Arians—frequently expressed the idea that the world was created by the Triune God. For example, St. Basil wrote: “As regards the creation of these [the angels], think about a primordial cause of what has been made, which is the Father; think about a producing cause, which is the Son; think about a cause that communicates the perfection, which is the Spirit. But no one should think that I am affirming the existence of three creating beings. There is only one principle.”16
In the Most Blessed Trinity, there are three Persons, but there is only one God, one sole divine nature. Therefore, there is only one principle of operations. All the operations ad extra of God—the operations whose object is outside of him (not the relations between the Persons)—proceed from this one nature and are common to the three divine Persons. Creation is one of these ad extra operations and is, therefore, common to the whole Trinity.17
Nevertheless, by appropriation, creation is attributed to the Father. Since the Father is the principle that begets the Son and from which the Holy Spirit proceeds, he is said to be the principle of all things.
5. Motive and Purpose of Creation
5a) Creation is Free
God created the world by a decision of his will, free from any necessity (de fide).
The Magisterium of the Church teaches that God created the world freely, without having been forced to do so by any kind of internal or external necessity. The First Vatican Council stated, “In order to manifest his perfection through the benefits that he bestows on creatures—not to intensify his happiness or to acquire it—this one and only true God, by his goodness and almighty power and by a completely free decision, from the very beginning of time has created both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing.”18
Sacred Scripture shows that God’s desire for something to exist is enough for that thing to receive its being: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.… ‘Let there be a firmament …’ And it was so” (Gen 1:3, 4–7). In the Book of Psalms, the complete freedom of God in creation is clearly mentioned: “Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth” (Ps 135:6).
Among the Fathers of the Church, St. Irenaeus stated, “He made everything freely, and in the manner that he wanted.”19 St. Augustine insisted that God did not need to create in order to have greater happiness: “What would have been lacking in Your happiness, which is Yourself for Yourself, if the creatures had not been made or if they had remained in a state that was not yet formed? You have not created them because you had any need of them, but you have made them and given them form because of the superabundant fullness of your graces.”20
God, moved exclusively by his love, wanted to create all things in order to manifest his glory and make his creatures share in his happiness. He is all-perfect and he is in need of nothing. He did not have to create in order to obtain some perfection he did not yet possess. That is why he created with complete freedom. He would not have been less God, nor less perfect, nor less good, if he had not carried out the work of creation. God’s freedom of creating or not is called freedom of contradiction.
Additionally, God has the freedom of specification. This means that, even after deciding to create, he was not obliged to create this particular world. He could have made a completely different one. This world is just one of those possible for the divine omnipotence. Although this world is very good, God could have created other much better worlds. Aside from his infinite power, God’s freedom of specification arises from the fact that no creature is necessary in itself. It can exist or not exist. Therefore, God could have made or not made each of the possible creatures at his own discretion.
5b) The Purpose of Creation
God created the world for his own glory, that is, in order to manifest his perfection through the good things that he communicates to creatures (de fide).
This truth of faith has been defined by the Magisterium of the Church in the First Vatican Council: “If anyone … denies that the world was made for the glory of God: let him be anathema.”21 The same council affirms that God created “in order to manifest his perfection through the benefits that he bestows on creatures.”22
Sacred Scripture also clearly contains the idea that the whole of creation is ordained to the glory of God: “The Lord has made everything for his own glory” (Prv 16:4). The “Song of the Three Young Men” in the Book of Daniel is quite impressive in this regard; it exhorts all creatures (mountains and rivers, heat and cold, birds and fish, angels and sons of men) to praise God (cf. Dn 3ff).
The same truth is taught in many texts of the Fathers of the Church. St. Ephrem asserted, “God has shown his power as creator by creating everything out of nothing. He has shown the richness of his wisdom by adorning, ordering, beautifying, and crowning all things. He has shown his goodness by gratuitously forming all the beautiful creatures.”23 Commenting on a text from the Book of Wisdom, St. Cyril of Jerusalem maintained that “the more we know the creatures, the more clearly the greatness of God shines forth.”24
The following arguments can shed some light on the freedom of God in creating and ordaining all creatures to the glory of God.
First, we must consider our natural experience regarding the way creatures act. It is proper of a created being to receive some effect from the actions it performs. After walking home from the office, a person receives the effect of his action: He finds himself at the doorstep of his house. A car mechanic receives the payment for his or her repairs and, at the same time, acquires more skill and experience in his job. These effects are the ends sought through the action.
However, God is not trying to acquire anything when he acts, because he cannot acquire anything that he does not already have. Therefore, the end of creation can be nothing but God himself. The only possible purpose of God’s ad extra operations are to manifest his perfection—his own goodness—as he communicates it. He is the fullness of Being, and he wants the creatures to have a participated being. This perfection of being in which we find creatures participating manifests the fullness of Being from which it originates. In the same way, the splendor of dawn manifests the nearness of the sun and, generally speaking, every effect manifests or reflects its cause. Thus, it is proper of creatures to manifest, through the goods they have received from their Creator, the perfection of the one who gave them those goods. In other words, it is proper of creatures to give glory to God.
5c) The World is Good
The world is good in itself (de fide).
Since the earliest times, the Magisterium of the Church has repeatedly affirmed that all creatures are intrinsically good. The Council of Florence declared, “When God willed, in his goodness he created all creatures both spiritual and corporeal. These creatures are good because they were made by the Supreme Good, but they are changeable because they were made out of nothing.… there is no such thing as a nature of evil, because every nature insofar as it is a nature is good.”25
Sacred Scripture explicitly mentions the goodness of created things. After the narrative of the six days of creation, the Book of Genesis adds, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gn 1:31). St. Paul also clearly remarked that “everything created by God is good” (1 Tm 4:4).
The writings of the Fathers of the Church show an ancient struggle against heretics who posited the existence of naturally evil substances. All the Fathers agreed in defining evil as the lack of a good due in a certain nature. Evil resides in a subject that, in itself, is good. Still, evil is not a substance: It is always an accidental privation.26
The good is the being insofar as it is desirable for the will. All creatures—from a grain of sand to the most perfect beings (the angels)—have received their being from God. That is why they are good and manifest the goodness and omnipotence of God.
On the contrary, evil is a privation of something that is due a being. Blindness, for example, is an evil because it is the absence of something due to man: the sense of sight. Nevertheless, a subject that is good will suffer evil, simply because evil exists. In the final analysis, the only real evil is sin—the act of a will that refuses to love what God wills. Still, sin is always committed while seeking an aspect of the good to which sin is united, such as the satisfaction of an impulse of pride or sensuality, the possession of some object, or comfort. Evil—sickness, moral suffering, or sin—is the undue privation of a particular good.
Since all things created by God are naturally good, we ought to love the world in which God has placed us, and work so that the earthly realities may once again clearly manifest the goodness of God. “We must love the world and work and all human things. For the world is good. Adam’s sin destroyed the divine balance of creation; but God the Father sent his only Son to re-establish peace, so that we, his children by adoption, might free creation from disorder and reconcile all things to God.”27
Footnotes:
1. Cf. CCC, 286–289.
2. The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 10.
3. DS 6.
4. DS 800.
5. DS 3025; cf. CCC, 296–298.
6. Hermas, The Shepherd, Comm. 1.1.
7. St. Basil, In Hexaem., hom. 2.2.
8. DS 800.
9. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 12, 24.
10. J. Ortiz López, Palabras de Vida Eterna: Charlas Sobre el Credo (Madrid: Magisterio Español), pp. 83–84.
11. Cf. ST, I, q. 44, a. 1.
12. Cf. Ibid., q. 45, a. 5.
13. Cf. CCC, 290–292.
14. DS 1331.
15 DS 800.
16. St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 16. 38.
17. Cf. ST, I, q. 45, a. 6.
18. DS 3002. Author’s emphasis; cf. CCC, 295.
19. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 3.8.3.
20. St. Augustine, Confessions, 13.4.
21. DS 3025.
22 DS 3002, cf. CCC, 293–294.
23. St. Ephrem, Hymn Adv. Haer.
24. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 9.2.
25. DS 1333; cf. CCC, 299.
26. Cf. St. Augustine, C. Julian., 1.6.17.
27. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, 112.